011,r Catlrolic Heritage in- T ezo.s
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of the domestic duties on the farm. The largest room in the old house was at that time converted into a chapel and Father John Lauth, C.S.C., began to say Mass for the Brothers and Sisters at the farm. To the local people the new foundation was known simply as "the Catholic farm." Although a small folio announcing the opening of "St. Edward's Academy, a boys' school for boarders and day scholars,'' ap- pears to have been published before 1881. In that year a school was started under the presidency of Father John Lauth, who was succeeded by Father Spillard, C.S.C., the next year. The first school, a frame building, was erected about a mile east of the site of the present University, which ob- tained its charter from the State of Texas under the name of St. Edward's College in 1885. The Congregation of Holy Cross was in Austin to stay. Development and G-rowt/1.. In 188q another large frame building was erected with room to accommodate the increasing number of boarding students and the faculty. It served until it was destroyed by fire on April 9, 1903. Undismayed, the President, Reverend John Boland, C.S.C.. immediately undertook the rebuilding of St. Edward's. M. J. Clayton, a noted architect of Galveston. who designed the Ursuline Convent in Gal- \'eston and St. Mary's Academy in Austin, drew up plans for the new University that rose as if by magic from the ashes of the old main build- ing. The architect'i. drawing- was reproduced in the Houston Chronicle on July 25, 1903. By the first of September of the same year two of the three buildings planned were finished and ready for the school opening. The graceful central bui1ding of limestone and its companion Holy Cross Hall were the admiration of all those that visited the College and are standing to this day. The new structures were as fireproof as building techniques could make them. the stairways between the floors being of steel and the roofs of sheetmetal. "It contains." said the Houston C/r,ron- icle, "the study hall, classrooms, general dormitories, lavatories, refec- tories, music room. the chapel. the library, and the private rooms of the faculty." In a stone structure three hundred feet to the rear of the main building and its Gothic tower was the natatorium. the first of its kind in Austin. The swimming- pool ,was 78 by 34 feet and the bath house adjoin- ing- it had eighteen "showers and needle baths of the latest and best de- sign." Hot water and steam heat were supplied from the new steam house. The dressing rooms were located in a balcony along the sides of the nata- torium. Next to it was a gymnasium "probably the largest and best equipped in the South," declared the Clironicle. Here is the equipment listed: In a hall JOO x 40 x 40, "besides the usual horse, para11e1 and
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